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Purpose

This is a simple yet powerful exercise that helps delegates discover something positive in every experience. The structure of the exercise is actually quite simple yet the power resides in asking a simple question that leads to positive thinking as opposed to asking questions that lead to self-blame and reduction of self-esteem.

Objective

Identify positive outcomes from a negative experience.

Setup

Divide the delegates to pairs. If you have an odd number of delegates use a group of 3.

Ask a volunteer in each group to tell a story of something bad that happened to them recently or years ago. Consider the following:

It can be work-related or personal.

It should take a maximum of 5 minutes to share.

It should be something that people can easily share and talk about without feeling uncomfortable.

The partner who told the story should now state what good came out of the experience. Each person’s partner should then help the other person in exploring these positive results.

Allocate 5 minutes for this part.

Swap roles and repeat the exercise by first explaining a negative experience and then looking for positive outcomes.

After 10 minutes for the second round, bring everyone back together.

Ask delegates to state what they thought of looking for positive results and discuss accordingly. Note that they don’t have to share their experience with everyone as this can take a considerable amount of time and might also be uncomfortable for some to be scrutinised by a lot of people. Instead, your aim is to get them confirm their ability in identifying positive outcomes in a negative experience, however negative it might have been.

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